INTRODUCTION 12,500 bc to 10,000 bc) with increasingly in-

tensive hunting, gathering, and cultivation of

Çatalhöyük in central Turkey was first exca-
wild plants; followed by the Pre-Pottery Ne-
Anatolia: Asian vated by James Mellaart between 1961 and
region of Turkey, olithic A (PPNA) from 10,000 to 8700 bc
1965. At that time the main impact of the site
although the main and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) from
was to show that early settled villages existed
focus here is on the 8700 to 6800; followed by the Pre-Pottery
outside the Fertile Crescent of the Middle
region from central Neolithic C (PPNC) and Pottery Neolithic
to southeastern East. The site also had a wide impact because
(PN). Because of the polycentric character of
Turkey of Mellaart’s (1967; Todd 1976) reconstruc-
the processes of sedentism and domestication
Epipalaeolithic: tions of elaborate shrines with complex paint-
(Gebel 2004) throughout the Middle Eastern
time period between ings, installations, and sculptures. Much of the
the Palaeolithic and and the Anatolian region, it is incorrect to use
symbolism of the Neolithic of the Middle East
the Neolithic. these terms and sequences outside the Lev-
has been interpreted in terms of the bull and
Associated with a ant, and other terms have been proposed for
mother goddess themes that Mellaart thought
changed lithic Anatolia (e.g., Özbaşaran & Buitenhuis 2002).
technology and more were so prominent at Çatalhöyük (see for ex-
However, the Levantine sequence is best un-
intensive subsistence ample Cauvin 1994).
strategies derstood and documented and provides a
Since the 1960s, our understanding of the
benchmark for the sequences elsewhere.
Kebaran: Neolithic of the Middle East has changed
Epipalaeolthic As comparatively well known as the Lev-
substantially. In particular, new finds from
groups in the Levant antine sequence may be, there remains little
throughout the region have pushed back the
prior to the Natufian consensus about the causes of the emergence
dates of early settled life and have shown that
include those with of sedentism in agglomerated villages and the
material culture the process is diverse—for example, the dif-
domestication of plants and animals. Despite
assemblages ferences between the Levantine sequence and
incorporating the late date of Çatalhöyük, the detailed ev-
that in southeastern Turkey are marked. How-
microlithic tools idence and the long-term projects at the site
ever, our understanding of Çatalhöyük has
Levant: region in allow insight into the character of prepottery
also changed as a result of new excavations
the eastern and early pottery agglomerated settlement in
started by Hodder in 1993 (Balter 2005; Dural
Mediterranean that the region. The site has remarkably dense set-
2007; Hodder 1996, 2000, 2005a,b,c, 2006,
now includes Israel, tlement (3500 to 8000 people in 13.5 ha) and
Palestine, the West 2007). For example, it is clear that the sym-
was occupied for a long period. The Neolithic
Bank, Syria, Jordan, bolism at Çatalhöyük is part of domestic cults
and Lebanon East mound is 21 m high, has 18 levels of occu-
and that female imagery is only a small part
pation, and lasts 1400 years before settlement
Natufian: cultural of a diverse set in which mother and goddess
group that has relocated to the West Mound on the other
characteristics are hard to find.
distinctive material side of the river (the Çarşamba Çay in the flat
The main focus of this review is on how
culture, lasts from Konya Plain) during the early Chalcolithic in
the new results from Çatalhöyük fit into or
approximately 12500 the early sixth millennium bc. The Neolithic
to 10000 bc, and is challenge wider theories about the Neolithic
economy was based on a wide range of domes-
associated with in Anatolia and the Middle East. Çatalhöyük,
predomesticated ticated and wild plants (Fairbairn et al. 2005,
dated to 7400–6000 bc (Cessford 2005; all
cultivation Hastorf 2005) and based only partially on do-
dates here are calibrated), occurs a long time
Pre-Pottery mesticated animals (sheep and goat—cattle
after the first sedentary settlements in the
Neolithic A and pig were not domesticated through the
Middle East (which emerge in the period be-
(PPNA): cultural main Neolithic sequence according to Russell
tween the twelfth and ninth millennia bc)
group found in the & Martin 2005). Çatalhöyük can thus provide
Levant from ∼10000 and well after the first domesticated plants
some insight into the ways in which people
to 8700 cal bc (in the ninth millennium bc but see below
lived in these early villages.
for the debate about the dates). The Lev-
Early theories of agricultural origins in
antine sequence, described below, involves
the Middle East were based on single envi-
Epipalaeolithic groups such as the Kebaran
ronmental, climatic, and population density
and Natufian (the latter from approximately
causes. The last glacial maximum occurred at

106 Hodder
24,000 to 18,000 years ago when the region
was cold and dry. The gradual change to
warmer and wetter conditions after this time
suffered a setback in the Younger Dryas
(11,500 to 10,000 bc) during the second half
of the Natufian. Bar-Yosef (2001) is among
many that see the Younger Dryas conditions
leading to intensification and then to PPNA
and the first agriculture. One limitation of
the climatic argument is that scholars now
indicate that sustained domestication of
plants did not occur at the end of the Younger
Dryas in the PPNA but considerably later
in the PPNB (Colledge et al. 2004, Nesbitt
2002, Willcox 2002).
External causes of change have tended to
be balanced during recent decades by theories
that focus on social factors such as prestige
exchange (Bender 1978), feasting (Hayden
1990), and symbolism (Cauvin 1994). So-
cial factors may have provided the driving
forces behind sedentism and intensification.
Although evidence from the Natufian on-
ward of large-scale communal building works,
and of open areas used for roasting pits, is
widespread, evidence throughout the region
and period of marked social ranking, except
at Çayönü in southeastern Turkey, is lacking
(Özdoğan & Özdoğan 1990).
Certainly recent finds have shown with
great clarity that initial sedentism was closely
tied to ritual. Landscapes may have been
drawn together at ritual centers to which peo-
ple came for initiation, feasting, burial, ex-
change, marriage, etc. (Schmidt 2000). In fact
several of the early sites seem to have been
ritual centers, whatever other functions they
may have had. In north Syria and south-
east Turkey, at sites such as Tell ‘Abr 3,
Jerf el Ahmar, and Göbekli, one finds large
PPNA buildings, circular and semisubter-
ranean, which have generally been accepted
as communal ritual buildings. Those at Tell
‘Abr 3 are 7–12 m in diameter (Yartah 2005).
The internal furnishings of these communal
buildings are certainly elaborate, but we need
to avoid getting caught in a possibly inappro-
priate opposition of ritual versus domestic. At
Tell ‘Abr 3, building B2 was dug 1.55 m into
virgin soil and had a bench within its circu-
lar walls. This in turn was lined with stone
Pre-Pottery
slabs polished and decorated with wild ani- Neolithic B
mals. Bucrania (cattle skulls) were deposited (PPNB): cultural
in a bench. But in another building, M1, a group found in the
hearth was found, and on the floor were found Levant from 8700 to
6800 cal bc
limestone basins and bowls as well as grinding
stones (Yartah 2005). PN: Pottery
Neolithic
Indeed, Yartah (2005) argues that the large
early PPNA communal buildings at Mureybet
and Jerf el Ahmar are not elaborate ritu-
ally and symbolically and were probably used
for stockage and multiple functions. But at
the end of PPNA Yartah suggests that there
is less evidence of economic functions and
much decoration and ritual—e.g., at Jerf el
Ahmar, Tell ‘Abr 3, and probably Göbekli.
However, the interpretations of these build-
ings, their communal and domestic versus rit-
ual nature, remain problematic until detailed
accounts of floor residues and discard prac-
tices are available. The forensic work on the
floors at Çatalhöyük shows that floors can be
carefully cleaned and abandoned and that mi-
croresidues of activities can be discerned only
with careful analysis. This work showed that
the supposed “shrines” at Çatalhöyük were
actually used as domestic houses (Bull et al.
2005, Matthews 2005, Middleton et al. 2005).
Even if, as seems likely, social and ritual
gathering was an important component of the
processes that created permanent sedentary
gatherings of people, we are left with the is-
sue of why people adopted more elaborate and
larger-scale social and ritual practices, includ-
ing the fashioning and erection of large mono-
liths and semisubterranean circular structures,
and all the investments of labor necessary for
large-scale feasting and ritual. Disadvantages
of economic intensification and of collective
living in one spot can be cited: hard work (seen
in stress markers on skeletons) and depletion
of resources, sanitation, disease, etc. (Larsen
1995). So by which process did people submit
themselves to greater work and intensification
to achieve the benefits of social and ritual elab-
oration and sedentary village life?
www.annualreviews.org • Çatalhöyük 107
 Many authors have summarized the so-
cial relations of hunter-gatherers (e.g., Ingold
1999, Meillassoux 1972, Sahlins 1972). In
general scholars argue that in hunter-gatherer
societies, the means of production are col-
lectively owned, groups achieved reciprocal
rights to the resources of other bands by ask-
ing permission, and studies show a lack of ac-
cumulation of personal wealth, with storage
being only a technique for preparing for sea-
sonal shortfalls. Ingold (1999) discusses the
notion of “collective access” (p. 401), and so-
cial relations are immediate (Woodburn 1980)
in that there is a lack of temporal depth in
the relations between self and other (Ingold
1999). Formal institutions that structure so-
cial rules and regulations (p. 406) are relatively
lacking. People trust good hunters, but they
trust the hunters not to reduce their auton-
omy. A leader cannot place a person under
obligation or compulsion because this action
is a betrayal of trust.
Such descriptions of hunter-gatherer so-
ciety are difficult to apply to societies in
the millennia that approach the domestica-
tion of plants and animals. An investment of
labor already accompanied the more inten-
sive economies of the Kebaran and Natufian,
and social relations could be decreasingly de-
scribed as immediate. We find little evidence
for storage beyond that needed to tide over
from season to season, and accumulation of
personal wealth is limited right up into the
PPNB. But there is undoubtedly an increased
focus on temporal depth. As people depended
more on things, and on intensive resource
extraction and cultivation, they would have
needed to depend on others to provide ob-
jects (in exchange), to tend objects (fields and
animals, houses and boats), to construct ob-
jects (houses), to discard objects (organizing
refuse and discard in dense villages), etc.
One of the conditions that made agri-
culture possible in the Middle East was a
changed relation to time and history. Rather
than immediate and short-term relationships,
societies in the region developed a strong
sense of temporal depth tied to specific
108 Hodder
places well before domesticated plants and
animals emerged. Intensive collecting and
early farming involved delayed return systems
(Woodburn 1980). But for delayed return sys-
tems to be viable (“selected for”), given the
harder work and restrictions involved, there
had also to be wider structural changes. One
of these was a greater sense of temporal depth,
history, and memory. Temporal depth is the
main focus of this review, but I briefly consider
two other regional conditions of possibility
for sedentism and the emergence of farming.
These possibilities include a symbolic focus
on wild animals, violence, and death and a cen-
tral dominant role for humans in relation to
the animal world.
REPETITIVE PRACTICES IN
THE HOUSE AND MEMORY
CONSTRUCTION
One of the main results from the new ex-
cavations at Çatalhöyük is that the buildings
Mellaart (1967) saw as static entities are now
understood as the by-products of continu-
ous processes. The new project has docu-
mented the extraordinary sequences of plas-
ters on floors, walls, and relief sculptures.
These monthly and yearly replasterings with
their associated residues often occurred up to
450 times in houses that lasted 70 to 100 years.
A house was then often rebuilt in the same
place. The old house was dismantled, often
carefully and with much careful cleaning and
placing of objects, and filled in with clean
soil, and the new house was built on the
stumps of the walls of the previous house.
In some places we have up to 6 rebuildings
in the same place. The repetition of the or-
dering of social space within these building
sequences is remarkable and has led to the
hypothesis that social life was organized at
least partly through the routines and prac-
tices of domestic socialization (Hodder 2006,
Hodder & Cessford 2004). Embedded within
a complex symbolic world, the daily activities
within houses formed and reformed the social
world.
 As well as these continuities in practices
and functions in houses at Çatalhöyük, one
finds very specific house-based continuities in
the art and symbolism (Düring 2006, Hodder
2006). For example, the building that Mellaart
called VI.8 had VII.8 below it, and in both
cases investigators found stylized hands in
horizontal rows. VIII.8 and VII.8 both had
vulture scenes. But perhaps the best example
was the repetition of the paired leopards in
VII.44 and VI.44. An individual leopard and
rather stylized fighting leopards were found
in two other buildings (VIII.27 and VI.80),
but these differed from the distinct pairings
in building 44 in Levels VII and VI.
Although some evidence shows feasting
and prestige exchange at Çatalhöyük, the bulk
of the evidence suggests that status and power
were very much based on the control of people
and their socialization within domestic units.
But how widely applicable is this view that
socialization through daily routines in houses
(Watkins 2004, 2006) was an important mech-
anism for creating and maintaining social rela-
tionships and access to resources? This article
looks at how similar interpretations might be
relevant elsewhere (Nadel 2006), even though
the preservation of detailed activity sequences
is usually not as good as at Çatalhöyük.
Some evidence at Çatalhöyük also indi-
cates a practice of burying the dead beneath
the floors of houses and then digging up
and recirculating selected human heads before
the final burial of these heads in foundation
and abandonment deposits. Some evidence
demonstrates the digging up of early relief
sculptures and animal heads and their use
in later houses and installations in houses. A
good case can be made (Hodder 2006, Hodder
& Cessford 2004) that the houses that invested
more in the construction of long-term mem-
ories in these ways were also more socially
and ritually successful. These houses tended
to have more burials and to be more elab-
orate in terms of internal fixtures (Düring
2006, Hodder 2006). The “ancestral houses”
are not larger than other houses, and they do
not have more storage or productive facili-
ties (Cutting 2005). Although plastered skulls
have long been recognized in the Neolithic
of the Levant, does evidence indicate the type
of recirculation seen at Çatalhöyük? Can we
argue that social power everywhere was based
on the control of history and links to the past?
We could argue that the repetition of
houses in the same place results from the
crowding and permanence of settlements.
However, the specific continuities in function
and art just alluded to at Çatalhöyük cannot
be explained in this way; neither can the dig-
ging down and retrieval of earlier skulls and
sculptures. In any case we see that repeti-
tion of house sites occurs very early in small,
relatively short-term settlements. Certainly,
by the time of the PPNA and PPNB the
decreased residential mobility and intensity
of habitation would have produced greater
internal site organization (N.B. Goodale &
I. Kuijt, circulated manuscript, 2006; Nadel
1998). But even in densely occupied settle-
ments a number of strategies can be taken in
locating new houses above, by, or near older
houses (Tringham 2000). Rather, it seems that
the repetition of houses and the construction
of house-based memories were formative pro-
cesses that played a part in producing seden-
tism, long-term duration in one place, and
agglomerated settlement.
Of course, repetitive practices took place
early in the Palaeolithic. These involved re-
peated seasonal uses of the landscape in such
a way that certain sites that provided shel-
ter, such as cave sites, were returned to over
long periods of time. For example, Ksar Akil
in Lebanon has 23 m of deposit covering the
period from the Middle Palaeolithic through
the Upper Palaeolithic to the Kebaran Epi-
Palaeolithic. In the upper levels there was
a “fine and complex stratigraphy” (Bergman
1987, p. 3). Kebara cave also has deposits span-
ning the Middle Palaeolithic and Natufian pe-
riods, or from ∼60,000 to 10,000 bc. The
Middle Palaeolithic deposits show repeated
use of part of the cave for hearths, while an
inner part of the cave was used as a dump area
(Goldberg 2001). The hearth area has deep
www.annualreviews.org • Çatalhöyük 109
 deposits of overlapping hearths, each of which
results from several episodes of combustion
(Meignen et al. 2000, p. 14). These multi-
phase hearths indicate long periods of repet-
itive use in the same depression (p. 15), and
similar processes are found in other sites in
the Middle East. Many fire installations were
vertically superimposed (p. 16) at Kebara, but
the placing of these hearths was not exact.
Rather investigators found a zone in the cave
where, over a long period of time, people
made hearths. Each hearth involved refirings,
but the hearths themselves created a vertical
palimpsest of overlaps. A part of the cave was
generally used for hearths, but investigators
did not find specific backward reference.
The Kebaran in the Levant has lowland
aggregation sites of 25–50 people and up-
land camps of 14–17 people, and there may
have been seasonal cycles of aggregation and
dispersal. Little architecture has been exca-
vated, but evidence shows a possible twice-
a-year or even year-long occupation in the
early Kebaran at Ohalo II about 21,500 years
ago (Nadel 1990). The largest hut at Ohalo II
had three successive floors and erect stones as
well as a probable stone arrangement under
them (Nadel 2006). The mud floors were cov-
ered with rich artifact debris, probably in situ.
Nadel (2006) suggests a clear focus on con-
tinuity of place. Burial beneath floors prob-
ably occurred in the Kebaran at Kharaneh
IV and Ein Gev (Valla 1991). At Ein Gev 1
in the Jordan Valley in Israel investigators
found a fourteenth-millennium-bc Kebaran
site on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee
(Arensburg & Bar-Yosef 1973). A hut was
found dug into the slope of a hill. “The hut
was periodically occupied as indicated by six
successive layers which accumulated within it”
(Arensburg & Bar-Yosef 1973, p. 201). Each
layer had a floor 5–7 m in diameter littered
with artifacts and bones, covered by a sandy
layer that included artifacts. In section, the
floors clearly repeat each other, and from one
of the middle floors a grave was cut. Evidence
does not indicate specific repetitions of fea-
ture or artifact placements, but this example
110 Hodder
clearly indicates some specific backward refer-
ence in the location of a house structure, even
in the absence of permanent occupation.
In the Natufian we see some degree of
sedentism. ‘Ain Mallaha has animals and birds
from all seasons (Valla 1991), and commensals
(such as the house mouse) indicate sedentism.
Settlements occur in the hill zones of Israel,
Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, and related sites
are found to the north in Mureybet and Abu
Hureyra. The later Natufian starts at the same
time as the Younger Dryas climatic deterio-
ration. In the Levant in the later Natufian,
many but not all hamlets dispersed and be-
came more mobile (Bar-Yosef 2001). But in
the Taurus in southeastern Turkey and adja-
cent areas, the response to the Younger Dryas
may have been greater sedentism at sites such
as Hallan Çemi (Bar-Yosef 2004).
Investigators noted both base camps and
short-term intermittent sites in the Natufian.
In the short-term sites, there is little evidence
of repetitive practices, for example, at Hatula
and Beidha (Byrd 1989, Ronen & Lechevallier
1991). Even in substantial Natufian sites we
find little evidence of structured repetition.
Valla (1991) notes that it is often difficult to
follow coherent levels of habitation in Natu-
fian sites, and it is difficult to show the ab-
solute contemporaneity of buildings (see also
Kenyon 1981, Moore et al. 2000).
However, in the early Natufian site of
Wadi Hammeh 27 in the central Jordan valley
there is “a continuity in spatial arrangement
of constructed features through successive
phases” (Edwards 1991, p. 125). The earliest
evidence of Natufian occupation at Hayonim
Cave is Grave XIII “which was covered by the
floor of Locus 3”—that is, by one of the struc-
tures with undressed stone walls (Bar-Yosef
1991, p. 86). At ‘Ain Mallaha we definitely
find superpositioning of houses. In the “an-
cient level” houses, 131, 51, and 62–73 suc-
ceeded each other on the same spot (Perrot
1966). And in the “recent level” houses we
find another sequence of houses dug into each
other (houses 26, 45, and 22). In the Final
Natufian at Mallaha, each major building had
a succession of floors, one on top of another,
with no sterile layers between (i.e., no aban-
donment fill) (N. Samuelian, H. Khalaily, F.R.
Valla, circulated manuscript, 2003).
At Çatalhöyük important evidence for
memory construction is the removal, circu-
lation, and reuse of human skulls. By the end
of the Natufian evidence indicates the removal
of the human skull after death, although in the
absence of evidence for circulation and reuse,
this does not by itself indicate the construction
of historical links to ancestors. Skull removal
may have had other roles such as healing, div-
ination, etc. Skeletons were found within the
houses at Mallaha, but the stratigraphical po-
sitioning is often unclear in Valla (1991). Ac-
cording to the reanalysis by Boyd (1995) the
131–51–62–73 sequence of buildings started
with 12 skeletons beneath the floor of 131.
He draws attention to the continuity of ac-
tivity in the same place starting with a set of
burials.
At Çatalhöyük the focus on repetitive prac-
tices in the house and on memory construc-
tion is associated with careful and elaborate
abandonment practices, including the place-
ment of objects and the filling of houses with
clean earth before rebuilding. For societies in
which temporal depth and memory construc-
tion are important, ending and starting build-
ings are likely to be significant events sur-
rounded in ritual. Did such practices already
occur in the Natufian? In the ruins of one
house at Mallaha investigators found several
boar heads (Valla 1991), which could indicate
ritualized abandonment processes. In what he
called Abri 26 at Mallaha, Perrot (1966) found
a child skeleton and necklace on the aban-
doned floor. Complete basalt artifacts were
found discarded or cached on interior floors
at Wadi Hammeh 27 (Edwards 1991), but it
is not clear whether they were just abandoned
in a context of use or whether this act was rit-
ualized in some way.
In the PPNA in the Levant, settlements
were 0.2 to 2.5 hectares in size and are thus
3 to 8 times larger than the largest Natufian
sites (Bar-Yosef 2001). The houses were of-
ten oval and semisubterranean, with inter-
nal hearths and plaster floors. As in northern
Syria, mounds were often long-lived. Jerf el
Ahmar had at least 10 building levels com-
prising ∼800 years of settlement (Akkermans
2004, p. 287). PPNA and related sites were
also often much more structured than most
Natufian sites. Nadel (1998, p. 9) has noted
that “in Natufian and other Epipalaeolithic
sites, it is common to find the entire range of
typological variability in each site, and even
in each locus . . . However, in PPNA cases,
it is common to find typological differences
between assemblages from contemporaneous
loci at a site.” N.B. Goodale & I. Kuijt (circu-
lated manuscript, 2006) have noted a similar
shift in the way that sites are formed, as a result
of their work at ‘Iraq ed-Dubb in Jordan. Here
a late Natufian occupation “had fairly non-
delineated use of space compared to a more
delineated use of space during the PPNA.”
We see much more evidence of repeated
use of the same space or house in the PPNA
throughout the region. Qermez Dere in
northern Iraq has good evidence of rebuild-
ing in the same place (Watkins 2004, 2006).
In Phase II at Mureybet on the Middle Eu-
phrates investigators found round houses that
were superimposed on an Epi-Natufian house
xxxvii. “Trois niveaux d’habitation en maisons
rondes se superposent directement à la mai-
son xxxvii de la phase IB. Il s’agit mani-
festement de la reutilization du meme espace
d’habitat en continuité directe avec la période
épinatoufienne” (Cauvin 1979, p. 26). In part
of the site they found five levels of occupation
in this phase.
At Jericho in Trench DII Kenyon (1981)
found a huge amount of very repetitive
surfaces adjacent to the tower in PPNA—
between the tower and adjacent circular en-
closures. It is inside the settlement that one
sees most residential continuity in PPNA and
PPNB deposits, although, on the whole, walls
were cut down further than at Çatalhöyük.
In PPNA in Squares EI, EII, and EV there
were 24 main building phases. In most cases
there Kenyon saw only 2–4 floors for each
www.annualreviews.org • Çatalhöyük 111
 building phase. “Some of the houses lasted
through several phases, but usually with re-
buildings almost from the base of the walls.
Associated with most of the phases was usually
a long succession of surfaces, particularly in
the courtyard areas linking the various build-
ings” (Kenyon 1981, p. 269).
The greater delineation of space in PPNA
sites has already been noted and is relevant
to abandonment and foundation processes.
One can find more evidence of refuse man-
agement practices, with separate middens and
more cleaning out of houses on abandonment
(Hardy-Smith & Edwards 2004, Rosenberg &
Redding 2000; N.B. Goodale & I. Kuijt, circu-
lated manuscript, 2006). In PPNA at Jericho
in trenches EI, EII, and EV Kenyon found one
building with a central stone lined post socket
under which was an infant burial (Kenyon
1981), which may represent a foundation de-
posit. In Square M1 in PPNA in phase xlii
in house MM the clay floor had a founda-
tion of cobble stones. “Set in the cobbles, but
sealed by the clay floor, and therefore con-
temporary with the construction of the build-
ing, were two burials” (Kenyon 1981, p. 232).
Skull removal also occurred in the PPNA
(Bar-Yosef 2001). At Jerf el Ahmar in north-
ern Syria, in Village 1/east there Stordeur
found a sunken building with wooden posts
to hold up the roof. At the bottom of one of
these posts “two human skulls were found”
(Stordeur 2000, p. 1). These findings begin to
suggest the specific use of skulls to build his-
tories in houses, although the use of skulls in
this way may have been simply protective or
magical. Yet the use suggests that links to the
past and past individuals were of increasing
salience.
Turning to the PPNB in the Levant,
‘Ain Ghazal has frequent floor replasterings
(Banning 2003), but perhaps the best evidence
is from the extensive excavations and sound-
ings at Jericho. As in PPNA, walls are built on
walls and floors are repeated inside houses.
So in EI, EII, and EV, in phase xlvii “the lev-
els in the northern room of the eastern range
[of rooms] were gradually raised by a series
112 Hodder
of floors. . . . The numerous floor levels sug-
gest a prolonged period of use” (Kenyon 1981,
p. 295). But the best evidence for repeated
surfaces was in the outside, courtyard areas
between buildings. The courtyards had alter-
nating layers of clay or mud floors and spreads
of charcoal (Kenyon 1981, p. 294). Kenyon
found hearths in these areas, but she did not
plan these; therefore, we cannot determine
whether location of hearths was repetitive in
outside areas.
In Jordan at PPNB Beidha, “the inhabi-
tants were extremely conservative in their sit-
ing of the different elements of the village”
(Kirkbride 1966, p. 14). In one building at
Beidha the total thickness of the multiple plas-
ter layers was more than 5.5 cm, and paral-
lels were drawn with Çatalhöyük (p. 18). At
Abu Hureyra 2 “each house was usually con-
structed on the remains of an earlier one, and
the form of that building largely determined
the plan of its successor” (Moore et al. 2000,
p. 262). The rooms of the ruined house were
filled in and the stubs of the walls cut down.
“The houses in Trench E were rebuilt four,
and the houses in Trench B no fewer than
nine times” (p. 266). Floors were renewed
at least 2–3 times, and sometimes up to 10
times. Walls also had mud plaster or white-
wash refreshed several times during a room’s
life. “The hearths were often set in the same
place in successive houses” (p. 265), e.g., the
series of hearths in houses of phases 2–7 in
Trench B. “We conclude from this that the
builders of a new house often remembered
not only the plan but also the internal ar-
rangements of its predecessor, and considered
it appropriate to replicate both” (p. 265). “We
know, too, that in some instances they them-
selves were the descendants of the inhabitants
of the earlier structures” (p. 266) because some
distinctive skeletal and dental traits that are
probably genetically transmitted were identi-
fied in house burials.
In southeastern Turkey at Çayönü there
seems at first sight to be much more evi-
dence of conformity within phases than be-
tween phases because houses changed in form
from round to grill to channeled to pebble
paved to cell to large room. We see a strik-
ing homogeneity of building types in each
building layer (Özdoğan & Özdoğan 1990,
p. 72). Thus investigators indicate more of a
focus on horizontal similarity than on verti-
cal continuity. However, even here Özdoğan
& Özdoğan (1990, p. 73) argue that “in ev-
ery building layer, the foundations of the
new building are always directly on top of
the preceding one, without disturbing or
reusing its stones.” Several buildings are men-
tioned as having several rebuilds, and the
Skull Building went through at least five major
rebuilds.
At Aşıklı Höyük in central Turkey, dated
to the late ninth and early eighth millennia
bc, “in one of the excavated rooms, ‘room A’
(trench 3K . . . ) 13 floor levels have been rec-
ognized” (Düring 2006, p. 73). At this site
variation between houses in memory con-
struction is a possibility. Only 35% of rooms
have hearths at this site, but in the deep sound-
ing, a building was knocked down and re-
built in the same place at least 7 times, a
practice that continued throughout the en-
tire 8-m-deep sequence in the mound (Esin
& Harmankaya 1999). In each rebuilding a
hearth is seen in exactly the same position.
Given the relatively small percentage of build-
ings with hearths, this evidence suggests that
some buildings passed down the practices of
hearth use, whereas others did not. We also
find much continuity at the site in terms of
the location of the major street by the “rit-
ual complex” and the location of midden ar-
eas (in the deep sounding). The emphasis on
continuity of houses seen at Aşıklı Höyük
and Çatalhöyük is also found elsewhere in
the Ceramic Neolithic in central Anatolia
(Düring 2006, p. 236).
Much evidence indicates repetitive prac-
tices in houses and memory construction in
the PPNB and related groups in the Middle
East and Turkey. Evidence also suggest aban-
donment and foundation practices, although
walls were generally cut down much more
than at Çatalhöyük. Burning of houses, asso-
ciated with death, is found as part of aban-
donment practices (Verhoeven 1999, 2000,
2002). Heads tend to be found in groups in
the Levant, sometimes with features plastered
on, but how much they were circulated is
not clear. Investigators found male and fe-
male skulls, as well as subadults, raising the
question of whether the skulls represent an-
cestor veneration at all rather than apotropaic
or other protective functions (Bonogofsky
2004, Talalay 2004). However, the deposi-
tional contexts of some skull deposition sug-
gest practices that may have involved back-
ward or forward reference. The skull of a
child was found between the stones of the
foundations of Wall E180 at PPNB Jericho
(Kenyon 1981). In phase lxi in a room in a
house in EI, EII, EV the cranium of an el-
derly man was set upright in the corner about
15 cm below floor level. In EIII-IV a plastered
skull was found in a building fill. Goring-
Morris (2000, p. 119) argues that many PPNB
burials definitely stratigraphically predated
the construction of the overlying architec-
tural features and floors. For example, “in
at least three instances at Kfar HaHoresh
burial pits clearly stratigraphically underlie
and are sealed by plaster surfaces” (p. 119).
In some cases we see a time lapse between
burial and/or skull removal and the making of
the floor. Thus buildings “remembered” the
location of the burials or skulls. Sometimes
there is evidence of markers above the burials
or skulls. Goring-Morris suggests that con-
structing buildings in relation to earlier build-
ings may have started at Mallaha in the Levant
(see above). Special abandonment practices
are found at Çayönü—for example, in the Cell
phase investigators found blocking of door-
ways, and intact artifacts are abandoned in cell
rooms (Özdoğan & Özdoğan 1990). Char-
nel houses or buildings for the dead occur
at Çayönü (the Skull Building) and at Abu
Hureyra and Dja’de el Mughara (the Maison
des Morts) in Syria (Akkermans 2004, p. 289).
Through much of the region in the PPNB
evidence indicates circulation and handing
down of artifacts through time. Practices of
www.annualreviews.org • Çatalhöyük 113
 stone recirculation and reuse were found at THE RITUAL VALUE OF
Çayönü. Standing stones up to 2 m high VIOLENCE, DEATH, AND SEX
were found in the plaza and in the Skull
The new work at Çatalhöyük has shown that
and Flagstone ceremonial buildings. “Some
much of the symbolism, far from having a
of the standing stones were intentionally bro-
focus on a nurturing mother, centers on vi-
ken and then buried under the subsequent re-
olence, death, and perhaps sex. The horns,
flooring of the plaza” (Özdoğan & Özdoğan
teeth, claws, and beaks of animals and birds
1990, p. 74). At Jericho in the PPNB lev-
are preferentially brought into the house and
els Kenyon found a large bituminous block
installed on or in house walls (Hodder 2006,
(Kenyon 1981, pp. 306–7). It had been care-
Russell & Meece 2005). Investigators found
fully flaked and was obtained from the Nebi
scenes of humans teasing, baiting, and killing
Musa district some 17 miles away. Investiga-
wild animals, and they found phallic images
tors found it in the foundation of wall E223
(Meskell 2007). At Çatalhöyük the prevalence
of phase lxv. But it fit exactly into a niche of
of such imagery in domestic and ritual con-
the earlier phase lxiv, where it probably stood
texts demonstrates that much social life was
on a stone set on a pillar of earth on which
embedded within these themes. They also
there were traces of plaster. So this stone had
found scenes in the paintings that suggest
a role in phase lxiv and was then reused in the
that death and violence were linked to rites
foundation of lv. In phase lxiii this same room
of passage in which the social order was cre-
had a distinctive green clay floor, all suggest-
ated and recreated through moments of tran-
ing that this part of the building had a special
scendence and transformation (Bataille 1962,
character over three phases.
Bloch 1992, Hodder 2006). It is of interest,
Overall, then, the pre-Neolithic and Ne-
therefore, that themes of death, violence, and
olithic societies of the Middle East and Turkey
sexuality dominate the symbolism of earlier
were increasingly concerned with temporal
sites such as Göbekli Tepe (Schmidt 2003).
depth. Evidence increasingly suggested repet-
This particular suite of ideas, linked to cere-
itive practices in houses, and sometimes in
mony and public feasting, was central to the
outside areas (e.g., courtyard or midden ar-
creation of large-scale social order on which
eas at Jericho and Aşıklı Höyük), as well as in
settled village or early town life depended.
public spaces such as paved streets (at Aşıklı
At Nahal Oren and other Natufian sites
Höyük). Evidence of specific memory con-
Noy found carved stones with incised deco-
struction as houses are built over burials, or
ration, and animal heads carved on bone han-
skulls and other objects are circulated and
dles (e.g., of sickles) (Noy 1991). The sickle
passed down through time is also increasing.
shafts from El Wad and Kebara are in the form
The concern with time depth, history, and
of deer and goat heads (Henry 1989). Fox
memory reaches its apogee in the PPNB at
(Vulpes sp.) teeth are widely used as raw mate-
the same time that domesticated plants appear
rials for pendants (Goring-Morris & Belfer-
in quantity, but it starts to emerge at least by
Cohen 2002, p. 70). In the Natufian we see a
Kebaran and Natufian times, even in contexts
marked rise in the numbers of raptor talons
in which sedentism is limited. It is difficult
(Goring-Morris & Belfer-Cohen 2002, p. 71)
to explain the focus on temporal depth as the
and pendants of bone and canine teeth (Henry
result of living in dense villages. Rather, the
1989). Investigators also found phallic objects.
emergence of greater temporal depth was a
“Natufian art also had an erotic element” seen
necessary condition for dense settled life, the
in a calcite statuette from Ain Sakhri (Henry
delayed returns of intensive subsistence sys-
1989, p. 206).
tems, and the shift to domesticated plants and
In the PPNA wild cattle imagery is found
animals, as well as for the staging of large-scale
throughout the region (Goring-Morris &
feasts, exchanges, and marriages.

114 Hodder
Belfer-Cohen 2002). At Tell ‘Abr 3, a se-
ries of stone slabs line the bench around the
walls (Yartah 2005) in building B2. These are
polished and decorated with wild animals—
gazelle, panther, aurochs—as well as with ge-
ometric designs. The panthers are spotted and
highly stylized and look rather like lizards.
Bucrania are deposited within a bench, but
there are also bucrania on view in smaller
buildings, interpreted as houses, at the site.
At Jerf el Ahmar investigators also found
a building with four cattle bucrania proba-
bly suspended on the interior walls (Stordeur
2000, Yartah 2005). At Jerf el Ahmar there
is also serpent decoration on the stone slabs
of the benches of the large circular buildings
(Stordeur 2000), along with a separate depic-
tion of a vulture (for parallel symbolism at
Hallan Çemi and Nemrik 9 see Rosenberg
& Redding 2000, p. 45; Kozlowski 1992). At
Göbekli Tepe in the PPNA and early PPNB,
megalithic pillars have reliefs of snakes, foxes,
wild boar, cattle, gazelle, wild ass, lion, scorpi-
ons, spiders, water birds, and centipedes. The
fox and wild boar have erect penises (Schmidt
2003). The reliefs also show a headless hu-
man body with an erect penis. In the PPNB
there continues to be a widespread symbolic
focus on the fox, wild cattle, wild boar, and
birds of prey (Goring-Morris & Belfer-Cohen
2002, pp. 70–71). At Nevali Çori, Hauptmann
(1999) reconstructs a large stone statue of a
man holding his erect penis.
This association in the early village soci-
eties of the Middle East with violence, sex,
and death in the symbolic imagery could
be interpreted in many ways (Hodder 2006,
Verhoeven 2002). But perhaps at the simplest
level, we can say that these associations give
power (Guenther 1999). The powers to give
feasts, to provide, and to protect would be en-
hanced by the images of violence, sex, and
death. At Çatalhöyük there is an association
between feasting deposits and wild male cat-
tle. The art shows large numbers of people
engaged in the killing of dangerous animals
such as bulls that then appear in the feasting
residues and in the installations in houses. In
Building 1 at Çatalhöyük, a set of wild goat
horns covers and perhaps protects a bin of
lentils (Hodder 2006). The key aspect of giv-
ing a feast may not have been simply the pro-
vision of calories, but also the demonstration
of intercession with and control of wild ani-
mals and the use of their powers to protect and
nurture.
The demonstration of power in relation to
wild animals and animal spirits created the ba-
sis for building the long-term social structures
of sedentary and then agricultural societies.
The ability to harness the power of animals
may have attracted followers and allowed the
creation of trust and dependencies. The exis-
tence of an elaborate symbolic world of vio-
lence, danger, and sexual power, and the abil-
ity to intercede with the ancestors, may have
created the conditions in which sedentary life
and intensive delayed-return economies be-
came possible (selected for).
HUMAN AND MATERIAL
AGENCY
In many hunter-gatherer societies animals
must be hunted with respect (Fowler &
Turner 1999, p. 422). Appropriate prayers
must be offered to the spirits of the animals
if humans are to expect the animals to yield
up their lives to the hunters. If humans cease
predation the animals will do less well and
decline in numbers (p. 422). There is a re-
lationship of friendship and respect, of reci-
procity and complementarity between hunter
and game animal (Guenther 1999). “Hunters
maintain relations of trust with their animal
prey . . . assuming that animals present them-
selves with hunters in mind, allowing them-
selves to be taken so long as hunters treat
them with respect and do nothing to curb their
autonomy of action” (Ingold 1999, p. 409).
Powerful hunters attract animals as they at-
tract followers. They inhabit a “giving envi-
ronment” so that “far from seeking control
over nature, their aim is to maintain proper
relationships with these beings” in the natural
world (Ingold 1999, p. 409).
www.annualreviews.org • Çatalhöyük 115
 But already at Göbekli we see something
very different from this perspective. In the
PPNA and early PPNB there are 2–3 m high
stone stele on which have been carved the im-
ages of wild animals, birds, and insects de-
scribed above. “The pillars themselves clearly
have an anthropomorphic meaning” (Schmidt
2003, p. 3) and the human figure is entirely
dominant. This is no longer a balanced re-
lationship. Even more clearly at Çatalhöyük
are scenes in the art showing people teasing,
baiting, and playing with wild animals such
as bulls, bear, wild boar, and stags. In these
cases the humans are dominating animals and
interfering with them. This increased impor-
tance of the dominant or active human in the
symbolic or mythic world may also be linked
to the ancestors. But the result was that the
conditions were created for the domestication
of animals, which involved interfering with
and dominating animals (Cauvin 1994, Ingold
1999).
CONCLUSION
Çatalhöyük is well known for its elaborate
symbolism, including narrative scenes. These
scenes allow a unique insight into the symbolic
world of its inhabitants. The rich preservation
at the site also allows the symbolism to be con-
textualized in the micropractices of daily life.
Many of the themes found in the symbolism at
Çatalhöyük occur widely in the Neolithic of
Anatolia and the Middle East, despite the re-
gional differences (for example, there is more
evidence of decentralized social equivalence at
Çatalhöyük and strong evidence of long tem-
poral sequences of houses).
Many of the themes found in symbolism
and daily practice at Çatalhöyük occur very
early in the processes of sedentism and the
domestication of plants and animals. These
themes include a social focus on memory con-
struction and temporal depth, a symbolic fo-
cus on wild animals, violence, and death, and
a central dominant role for humans in re-
lation to the animal world. These themes
occur early enough throughout the region
that they are integral to the development of
settled life and the domestication of plants
and animals. Some of the themes, particularly
the focus on time depth in house sequences,
may have been part of the suite of condi-
tions, along with environmental and ecologi-
cal factors, that “selected for” sedentism and
domestication.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
The author is not aware of any biases that might be perceived as affecting the objectivity of
this review.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank Dani Nadel and Ian Kuijt for help in gaining access to literature for this paper. I also
thank the team of Çatalhöyük researchers on whose work this review is based.

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